The use of AI on photos

The use of AI on photos, good or bad if used correct. What do you think?
Last photo is the original.
I have just used it for the first time. ChatGP free to use.
I typed this in this first.
Restore this vintage black-and-white photograph. Remove scratches, dust, stains, and film damage. Improve focus and recover detail without inventing features. Increase contrast and preserve the original grain and historical appearance. Keep it black and white with a natural, authentic look."

I did say add colour after b&w.
I have seen it used and can be very very bad. [ youtube ] Photo not 100% you still need to correct bits on it.

 

What's the story behind the photo ? AI has given the Bedford a 1960 Norfolk registration. I find it all rather dangerous.

 

You're not going to get a positive opinion from me about this.

Comparing the two photos, it is clear that the AI has invented the registration number. There is clearly not an H in the original. Honestly it looks more like "DG" to me in the original. And if I'm not mistaken, some object on the vehicle (above the left front wheel well) has changed shape.

 

An "expert" told me that AI deliberately makes mistakes, so that you can tell that it's AI!
Probably bollocks
Our group had tried to correlate casualty lists, but it made up some of the names.

 

Photo is of the bedford in the dunes near Dunkirk 1940. AI has given it a wrong reg number.
Thought i would just try it to see how good or bad it was.
I would not post my photos in AI just this one of the bedford to test it.

 

I can see where AI might be potentially useful at removing halftone screens from published photographs. Sometimes the original picture is lost or otherwise not available.

 

I would very much like a tool for that. I don't feel that it has to be an LLM.

 

I agree. As soon as AI is involved, it will interpret what it cannot find in its database, without saying it does, and the original, factual information (or lack of it) contained in the photograph will be corrupted (or invented).
I fear that an independent agency will soon become necessary in order to authenticate AI-free photographs.

 

Ima just gonna leave this here.



All the best

Andreas

 

Or this.



It gets worse the longer you look at it.

All the best

Andreas

 

I need to lie down

 

I don't believe AI is useless, but it can be dangerous in the wrong hands. So is gunpowder, nuclear bombs, VX nerve agent and bioweapons but you cannot un-invent those either. The genie is out of the bottle.

Heavily edited photographs are nothing new because some AI algorithm is doing that instead of the old-fashioned way with paint brushes or Adobe Photoshop. Do some digging and you will find a deluge of international World War II propaganda photographs that were tarted up with an airbrush. Some of the artists who did that kind of work were more sophisticated than others.

One of my favorite doctored images shows the last moments of the destroyer USS Edsall, which was sunk in battle near Christmas Island. The retouching job by a Japanese artist is so bad, that it's good.

 

AI can sometimes be a very useful tool when manual work reaches its limits.
However, one should be quite cautious and already have some understanding of the subject matter being dealt with:
AI operates according to plausibility criteria within the scope of its acquired knowledge.
Results that my better half, for example, finds entirely convincing when it comes to military technology, can, on the other hand, only elicit utter dismay from me, the nerd.

 

The best thing about this comparison is that once people clock the BS on the left, they start querying the picture on the right 'doesn't that look like a Corsair?' etc. until told that no, that one is legit, Bundesarchiv. Dated 11 July 1942, Wüstennotstaffel and the crew of a force-landed Ju 87 from StG3.

We have a high-res copy of it in Breaking Rommel, so that's why I am quite familiar with it.

All the best

Andreas

 

Had a go with two of my photos of my old morris truck i used to own and made this, 2nd one not to bad, i took the unit sign off on the left. . 1st photo, Not to bad apart from the tyres and no hip ring on the front canvas and the Z number wrong but can be made good.
Keith